Salami on the window, daddy on the balcony

at 8:30am – exactly 30 minutes before you are on show in front of the Executive board. You would think that by now you could at least be competitive when it comes to determining the most pressure-resistant person in your organization – at least your patience levels have rapidly gone up ever since you are married and hit record highs since becoming a mum. Sure you don’t mirror any of this today, since you feel like an absolute nervous wreck, partly for working through the last nights but more so for fighting your inner I-want-to-be-perfect-self. That’s why your mind has been tormenting you since you woke up in the middle of last night, remembering that you need to change one teeny-tiny detail in your presentation deck.

8am. Finally you have reached the office, totally out of breath and with a rash all down your neck. 1 hour until the presentation. A little relief starts to set in as your computer starts up and the last minute change (which probably nobody else then yourself would have even noticed) seems only a few seconds away – if only the computer didn’t have a mind of it’s own and decided that today was the perfect day to update and reinstall all systems and softwares. At university, I have been given the nickname “Magneto” as any electronic device that I touched either broke down completely or at least collapsed temporarily, of course predominantly in deadline critical situations.
In my case, as much as I can rely on IT to raise my blood pressure to the ultimum in situations like this, my husband is equally reliable to continuously pressure-test me. That’s why I had to think twice whether I should pick up the phone call when I saw my husbands name on the display at 8:30am.

“Bobi locked me out on the balcony and he doesn’t open the door.” Stupid enough my husband played a similar joke like this on me on various occasions, his way of trying to calm me down in stressful situations by trying to distract my mind and make me laugh. I never find it funny, neither on this day and put down the phone. 8:35am. My phone rings again. “What”, I shout into the phone. “Seriously honey, I cant get in and I am wearing only shorts and a T-shirt and need to get to work.” You have got to be kidding me.  My rash has extended up my neck across my face.  30 seconds later, I receive a video and all I can see is salami on the balcony door. Bobi had moved the dining room chair to the fridge and emptied a whole pack of salami and distributed all slices evenly covering all parts of the balcony door that he was able to reach, smiling in the camera with every slice. After that, he thoroughly removed all salami slices and put half of them back in the pack and the other half in his mouth. I had to laugh and cry at the same time.

15 minutes before the presentation I got the news that my husband managed to get hold of our nanny. She came by and  thankfully Bobi recognized her voice and opened the door. I was an absolute wreck as I went up to the board room and  switched off my phone for the rest of the day.  When I returned home late and totally exhausted after a long day I found my husband and Bobi waiting  up for me. Waiting up for me to remove all the salami grease from the window only to then throw on a 500ml  tub of yoghurt to see if it also sticks so nicely to the glas.